Time is on my mind today.
I started the day with a guided meditation/visualization that had me look into the future that I wanted. I can see it so clearly. It has gotten me into a very reflective place, traveling through time in my mind.
This past week, I made progress toward knowing what is going on with me. While I don’t have a diagnosis, and won’t for a while (getting into see a geneticist is like getting Taylor Swift Tickets apparently), for the first time I feel like I have a plan based off evidence. We are operating from the assumption that I have something called periodic paralysis, which means I have different tools to see how they affect me. I get to conduct my own little science experiments every day with my health to see what does and does not work.
I have not been able to write since this appointment. For several days, I sit down to work on the post that I mapped out for this week, and nothing will come out. Today, I started to just write, and this idea of time keeps coming up. In my mind, I am thinking of the future (even making a manifestation Pinterest board if you want to check it out), but as I write, only the past is emerging.
Past is for Storytelling
I have a piece I continue to slowly work on called not knowing you’re in the middle (which some day will get done and posted). When it comes to the middle, in the sense of time, there are many times that you don’t know you’re in the middle until you reach an unexpected ending. I’ve found that when you don’t know you’re in the middle, it’s the most beautiful.
We constantly hear this when it comes to parenting. This idea that time is slipping away from us as our children age. It’s in so many places, though. Work, friendships, family rituals, we assign the good times to a beautiful middle, we probably didn’t realize that’s what it was until it was over.
I’m uncertain if it is because I’m struggling in this middle instead of fully loving it. It may be because I am documenting more of my life, or I have way more time to think. I am becoming increasingly aware of the different moments that hit as a change point. It’s almost like I can see my life as if an author is writing out the plot points of my current story.
Plot Points in My Story
I have a running series of plot points in my mind about my illness and big life change. I have not written them all out for you explicitly, but you have heard these points come up time and again. You can even go back to my previous posts to see these plot points happen in “real” time.
- Panic attacks started to signal that something was different or wrong within me.
- Halloween has become my marker for my last day of mild normalcy, independence, or freedom.
- Purchasing my shower chair was the first moment of acceptance that my life was going to change on a more permanent basis.
My doctor’s appointment last week was a plot point. It could be a red herring like in a mystery novel, letting me think I know what is going on, or it could be the start of the conclusion of this part of the story. I am trying not to read too much into this being a possible illness whodunnit, but it could be quite fun (and now an idea I am writing down for myself in the future).
I don’t know how to end this
You need to know, I’m sitting here in my bed, as I write, with tears in my eyes. I’m not certain from where the tears are coming. I don’t know if it is grief, sadness, relief, some sense of comfort, or acceptance. Most likely, it is probably a messy blob of all of those things. I don’t have one overwhelming feeling, just big emotions leaking out.
Tomorrow I will come back to edit this, and most likely have a bit more insight. Just like with those plot points of mine looking back, I will have just a little more space and knowledge to be able to sort through it all.
I am grateful that often when I look back like that, I don’t play the what-if game. For a period of time when I was younger I did. But now, I am not thinking “what if I didn’t have those panic attacks?”, “what if Halloween was normal?”, or “what if I purchased a shower chair not for necessity but just for the joy of it?” (come on, friend – like I was going to mention the shower chair and not sing its praises).
For now, I guess I will close this with the relationships I desire with time. The past is for making sense and learning. The present is for enjoyment and embracing. The future is for dreaming and wonder.
If I was able to change my relationship with the past to making sense and not what-ifing, maybe soon I will be on my way to enjoyment and embracing in the present.